Promising underage rugby career helped lift powerhouse Joe O’Connor to centre stage for Kerry
Kerry’s Joe O’Connor has brought the attributes he picked up playing rugby into his football game. Photo: Sportsfile
It was the end of October and Joe O’Connor would leave his Tralee home and head off down the N21, sat-nav set for Newcastle West. There to train with the club’s senior footballers as they prepared for Munster club championship action.
His club, you see, were done by then. Austin Stacks’ hopes of a return to the senior ranks at the first time of asking were ended by David Clifford’s Fossa in a thriller at Fitzgerald Stadium, a game he wasn’t yet fit for.
